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Sunday, September 23, 2012

The talk given by my Bishop, Don Fletcher, at the Circling the Wagons Mormon LGBT Conference in San Francisco last month, shared with his permission. I'm a blessed man to get to serve with a human who has such an amazing spirit.

Enjoy.
________________________________________________________

One of my
favorite scriptures is 1 Nephi 11:17.In
this passage Nephi is being grilled/peppered with questions by an angel.Not personally being a scholar on all points
of gospel nuance, I can readily identify with his answer to the angel in this
verse: “And I said unto him: I know that He loveth his children; nevertheless,
I do not know the meaning of all things.” (1 Nephi 11:17)

As a
human, I certainly don’t know the meaning of all things either--yet I am also
totally confident that God loves all of His children.

There are a vast array of challenges that beset the members of my
ward – some are very emotionally distressing.In my calling
as a bishop, I love to make use of priesthood blessings – like Peter said in
Acts, it is a gift that is very concrete and real that I can offer my ward
members. The words of the Lord through a priesthood blessing can often be not
only comforting, but sometimes very instructive also.

“Then Peter said, silver and gold have I none; but such as I
have, give I thee.” (Acts 3:6)

My ward
in San Francisco
may have the distinction of having more members that are gay than any other on
the planet.I have had the privilege of
meeting with many of these members and they have blessed my life greatly. A
common thread that I hear repeatedly is an ongoing testimony of the gospel, a
love of the Savior and a total confusion about how a gay person fits into the
Lord’s eternal plan.

In each
of the many blessings I have given to these individuals, as I have laid my
hands on their heads, I have felt strongly impressed to always start each and
every blessing with the simple declaration that “you are loved by the Lord,
right now, exactly as you are”.It has
amazed me at how powerfully those words have affected these members.It may seem simple and obvious but it has had
a deeply positive impact for my members to know that.

Bishop Fletcher at the Statue of Liberty

The
history of theworld
is replete with various groups of people not
being loved, accepted, or respected.In
a recent trip to New York, I had the
opportunity to visit Liberty Island and gaze
at that beautiful symbol of our freedom moving forward, even LadyLiberty.I was interested to hear the story that in
the 1896 unveiling party for that strong feminine form, women were not invited,
notallowed on
the island for that occasion.The suffragettes circled the islands in
boats, protesting their exclusion!
I have served as a bishop in 3 different states – Florida,
Alabama and California.Each location has afforded me the opportunity to advocate for theinclusion of
sometimes marginalized members.In Florida, I do not think
that my older members were always given the respect and opportunities thatthey should have had.(I
must admit some bias here being a physician with an almost entirely geriatric
practice – I love my senior patients.)

In Alabama, my wonderful ward in inner city Birmingham was made up of about 65% African
American members.These fine Saints were
familiar with the sting of not always being seen as equal.My first counselor recounted the story of how
several years earlier (but after 1978) he had been interviewed for the
Melchezidek priesthood.One evening,
while cleaning the Stake President's office while working as the janitor for the
stake center, he was hurt deeply to find his recommend with bold red letters
scribbled on it proclaiming “THIS MAN IS BLACK.” The culprit was never
identified, but the critical lesson was the Christlike manner in which this man
responded. Though hurt, he proceeded on with full activity in the church,
humbly serving around those who did not see things as the Savior would have had
them.

The Bay
Ward in San Francisco
tries hard to be exemplary of Christ like love
and acceptance to all in our diverse congregation – I am honored to be one of
its members.As I have visited as a
bishop with our many gay members, I have been
overwhelmingly saddened to hear theirstories of great emotional suffering.The feelings of isolation from gay members
who have reachedthe
conclusion that they are not worthy of God’s love are the most heart wrenching
I have heard.

I have a family member who is gay and is not currently attending church
meetings.He still has a testimony of
the restoration.He knows the Book of
Mormon is true.But with reference to
his ward, he simply states, “Ifthey knew who I was, they would not want me
there”.That is his honest well
considered perception—and his sad reality.
Primary songs bring the spirit into my life with great dependability.One of my favorite Primary
songs has alwaysbeen the song – “I'll Walk with You”, the words of that song
composed by Carol Lynn Pearson.(pg
140, Children’s Songbook)

This
church is truly the church
of Jesus Christ.He lives and He loves us - each and every
one.We are loved and we need to love each
other as He loves us.I hope that as
a church we can all shed some of the cultural relics that have prevented gay
members from viewing themselves as the loved children of God that
they are.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

I’m a pretty easy going
guy. Very little gets under my skin these days. I am, after all, a gay Mormon.
If I were easily offended I’d have left the playing field a long time ago. And, I’ve
often remarked that the only opinion of me that matters more than my own is
that of my Savior—and quite honestly, that’s a place I am quite content to
remain.

Something happens, though,
when I see my Mormon fellows joining hands, and engaging in a spiritual round of,
“Tick, tock, the game is locked, and nobody else can play.” I jokingly told my
friend Joanna Brooks that maybe this was evidence that I have a paternalistic
instinct after all, despite a house full of dead plants that seem to provide
evidence to the contrary. But humor aside, not only is this a hurtful, unkind
signal to anyone who doesn’t fit our own personal definition of “Mormon,” it
completely misses the primary message of our Savior: “Whatsoever ye would that
men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” (Matt. 7:12.)

Last week’s Rock Center
special on “Mormon in America”
provided us as a faith with a potentially amazing opportunity to give our
fellows across the country a look at Mormons at their best—honest, kind, compassionate,
diverse, and a people who genuinely aspire to be emissaries of our Savior’s
unconditional love. And by and large, while it wasn’t perfect, I tip my hat to
my new friends at NBC for doing a pretty darn good job with what they had to
work with.

But then it went wrong.

The post-interview on KSL (a local Salt Lake City station)
featured the Mormon family that had been interviewed in the same segment as
Joanna Brooks, Abby Hunstman, and me. And as I listened to what was said, I
felt a familiar hot feeling crawling up my gut and into my face—shame. Rest
assured, I was not shamed by the messages they delivered—I believe what
we say about others tells the rest of the world a lot more about us, than it
does them. I was ashamed, as a Mormon, for them.

In the KSL commentary from
the Mormon family, there was no gratitude. Humility was shockingly absent.
There was no wish that more of our church had been presented, or that more time
had been dedicated to what the sacrament or other cherished parts of our faith
represent to us. It wasn’t about our religion at all. It was about being
better than others.

Said the wife, smiling: “I
always am concerned when they focus on circumstances or exceptions that are the
fringe element of the faith. I think 98% of the members of the church are indicative
of how our family is, but they seemed to focus on more of the 2% that are
disenfranchised at some level, so I always go, ‘Oh…’ (rolls eyes). Because they
spent three days with us! And so we know what they saw, and what they
could have highlighted, and it seemed like it was a little superficial in some
of the clips they did on us, and more in depth on those that were...” (groans,
winces)

Said the husband, smiling:
“I wish they had shared more in depth things, as my wife just said, about, like
kind of the way they did with the 2%, and the folks that are disenfranchised…I
wish they had shown more of our kids because that’s really who we are.”

Said the wife, again,
while the husband smiles in the background: “I wish they would have highlighted
a little more of mainstream Mormonism, instead of highlighting some of these,
unusual, (winces, looks pained) circumstances, situations or feelings (of) a
small minority of members, they always seem to focus on those who have issues
with the faith, and I think, ‘Well..’ (winces again). I’m not sure that’s the
best, you know, indicator of a faith.”

Said the husband: “But I
want to add to that, most of America,
when they’ve been exposed to people of our religion and our faith, are
impressed and they know who we are. And
I think for the most part, we’re becoming more and more accepted into the
mainstream, and you know, a tree is known by its fruit. And members of this
faith who live their faith religiously, faithfully, their fruit is good. And
that’s really who we are and what we’re about, and we go about letting our
light shine, and I wish NBC had shown more of that tonight, but, (deep breath) it’s
NBC, and they’re a little different in terms of, uh, what they wanted to portray
tonight, and I understand. But we know who we are, and we put our best foot
forward for those three days.”

We are the better
Mormons, their message implied. We deserve more. And
the element we consider “fringe diversity” didn’t merit representation to such
an extent—or maybe even at all. They don’t really count. After all, the fringe,
in our estimation, only accounts for 2% of our faith—so clearly they deserve
less.

They deserve less.

At its best, this message
tells the rest of the world that Mormons are elitists—that while we may smile
when you’re with us, underneath simmers an ugly disdain and scorn for anyone we
determine to be different in any regard; that while our smiles may be warm, our
hearts are not.

At its worst, it’s a way
of legitimizing persecuting and humiliating those we think, in our imperfect
mortal state, are less than us. It tells the world that we believe that anyone
different from us not only deserves less air time—but less church, less
inclusion, less love, and perhaps even less God.

I suspect there’s not a
Mormon out there who hasn’t heard (or been the recipient of) one of these
messages—so sadly, this isn’t just a horribly unfortunate and isolated mistake.
Instead, it exemplifies one of the most significant challenges within our faith
today. Facebook chatrooms and individual blogs share thousands of stories where
Mormons have dishonored their own covenants to ‘bear one another’s burdens’ and
instead, castigated their fellows and heaped upon them scorn and rejection.

After the NBC special and
following interview aired, the emails and messages started pouring in from the
‘fringe:’

I went to the Mormon
Church while I visited Utah.
I’ve seen these kind of people. Never before have I met such intolerant people
who smile so much.

I was raised in the
Mormon Church, and there are parts of it I love and miss. But I got tired of
the Relief Society sisters bringing over plates of cookies and looking at me
with pity and saying (about my non-member husband), ‘Don’t you hope one day
he’ll convert?’ My response was, ‘No, I married him because I love him for who
he is.’

I heard these same
messages over and over again in my ward. I’m not gay, I’m not a feminist, but I
couldn’t watch these people claim to be Christlike and hurt others in His name.
When I resigned, I put my Sunday School teaching manual down on my Bishop’s
desk and said politely, ‘I’m sorry…I’m just too compassionate to be a Mormon.’

I don’t know how you
and Joanna [Brooks] do it. Good thing Jesus didn’t have the attitude many
Mormons seem to have. There sure would have been a lot of disappointed lepers.

What troubles me the most
is we know better—and we can certainly do better. This isn’t Mormonism
at its best. And it certainly doesn’t exemplify what each of us strives to
be—examples of our Savior’s unconditional love.

In fact, if we think about
it, our Savior was chiefly concerned with the fringe—one of his mottos, after
all, was “leave the ninety-nine to get the one.” And as always, His example is
the penultimate when it came to expressing unconditional love.

When Christ was on an
urgent rescue mission for the daughter of one of the Jewish synagogue leaders,
he was followed by a large crowd of people. Among the throngs of individuals,
there was a "certain woman," who pressed through the crowd to touch
His robe in an act of faith--that by doing so, she might be healed. We are told
that for twelve years she suffered a vaginal flow of blood, an almost constant
hemorrhage. But worse than her physical illness was the suffering she had to
endure at the hands of her brothers and sisters--because of mental and
emotional shame inflicted upon her by her fellows.

Like so many, her desire was to be near the Savior, to look into His eyes, to
feel His love for her. But this she could not do, because according to Jewish
law, she was unclean. She, like so many ‘fringe’ Mormons, was judged unfit to
mingle with the community, unfit to worship in the temple. She was an
outcast--scorned, and unclean.

Yet, like so many times in His mortal ministry, Christ stopped and healed this
woman. True, the physical healing must have lifted a tremendous burden. But the
most important aspect of His kindness was healing her aching and broken spirit.
For the rest of her life she would know that Christ knew her,
that he noticed her, and that he accepted her. What
a profound demonstration of our Savior's love, mercy, and kindness. What a
tremendous example of reaching out to someone on the fringe, regardless of
consequence.

Being numbered among the
fringe is not a plague; but what many of us suffer at the hands of others, is.
What an amazing invitation this story is for us within the Mormon Church to
reach out to others and emulate our Savior—for as Mormons, there can be no more
worthwhile pursuit than becoming like our Savior. And what an equally moving
cry for those of other faiths, or none at all—for there is little more virtuous
a pursuit than striving for what is right.

Over time, I’ve come to
view my church much the same way I view my mortal fellows—imperfect, and
presented with constant opportunities to improve. As such, there are things we
will get amazingly and stunningly right. And there are things we will get
horribly, painfully wrong. But like the humans who inhabit it, our Church will
learn, grow, and continue to improve as long as we’re mindful of where we’re
off course, and gently guide ourselves back to where we should be.

I believe that I
cannot be an ambassador of my LGBT brothers and sisters and ask for compassion,
understanding, inclusion and patience from my Mormon fellows—if I am not among
the very first to offer those same qualities to them. It is the responsibility
of every Mormon to help our church and our membership continue to become better
children to our Father, and better disciples to our Savior.

Often, for me, I’ve found
one of the most effective ways I improve is when someone has the courtesy—and the
courage—to hold a mirror up to me, to allow me to see myself as others view me.
Sometimes I don’t like the image that’s reflected back. But invariably—and
especially when I don’t like what I see—I’m always grateful for the chance to
make a course correction, and come a little bit closer to the kind of person
both I and my Savior want me to be.

And it is in that same
spirit in which I write this post—with love for my fellows both inside our
church and out, and the confidence that we, too, can improve and grow.

As for me personally, I
believe every single one of us is equal in the eyes of our Savior, regardless
of orientation, ethnicity, gender–or any other marker we use as humans to define
differences between ourselves and others. As such, I don't believe it is ever
my job to condemn, criticize, or mock another. My job, as my Father’s son, is
to walk beside you as you learn the lessons life is intended to teach you; to
celebrate your joys with you, and to lend a hand when you stumble. The true
spirit of love we have for one another is kind, patient, and doesn’t demand its
own way. It doesn’t scold, condemn, or criticize. I am most certainly an
imperfect human–but this is the spirit I think our Savior wants us to strive to
achieve throughout the human family, and it is the spirit that I endeavor to
bring to my entire life–and most certainly my faith in this Mormon Moment.

So to my new friends at
NBC, thank you. I know how many nights, weekends, and labor-intensive hours
went into this production. I know your hearts were in the right place. I know
it was your desire to produce something that would represent us honestly and
that would make us happy—yet not be a manufactured PR infomercial. And I, for
one, think you did a pretty good job. Any time we can get an hour of Mormon
time on national TV, it’s a win for us—and one that many, like me, appreciate.

And to those who have
heard a scornful Mormon remark that makes you feel like ‘fringe diversity,’ I
am sorry. We’re not perfect, and our words and our actions may not always show
the love we strive to hold in our hearts for you. But we’ll get better—it’s
part of who we are.

While no one speaks for
98% of our faith, I do speak for myself. And you’re welcome in my ward any
Sunday—regardless of your color, stripe, spot, pattern, or any other marker we
use to create distance between ourselves and others. I’d love to see you there.